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"Timeshare of clubs risks killing Ligue 1... and football"

2023-05-09T14:05:10.818Z

Highlights: Julien Gonzalez-Lambert is a member of the board of directors of the Concorde Foundation, a liberal and pro-business think tank. He worries that the teams in our championship, anchored in their territory, will become mere subsidiaries of multinationals. The latest avatar of the financialization of this sport, timeshare, through the constitution of global conglomerates, reinforces the unequal dimension of European football, he says. The threat is easily identifiable: the loss of sovereignty, of control of their own destiny.


FIGAROVOX/TRIBUNE - Like Olympique Lyonnais, more and more French clubs are owned by investors who own others, says Julien Gonzalez-Lambert. He worries that the teams in our championship, anchored in their territory, will become mere ...


Julien Gonzalez-Lambert is a member of the board of directors of the Concorde Foundation, a liberal and pro-business think tank. He is also Director of Institutional Relations and Advisor to the President of the Chamber of Commerce and Industry of thePACA Region.

Timeshare of clubs is a growing phenomenon in the world of football. Still marginal in France a few years ago, it tends to develop and now concerns, to varying degrees, nearly half of the Ligue 1 teams. But beyond the economic and capitalistic issues it underpins, could timeshare, if it were to grow even more, threaten the sovereignty and competitiveness of French football?

The subject is more and more invited in the news of our championship. Commentators, for example, were surprised to see Troyes sack their coach Bruno Irles last November, to replace him with the very inexperienced Australian coach of Melbourne Patrick Kisnorbo. However, Troyes and Melbourne have the same owner, the City Football Group of the Abu Dhabi sovereign wealth fund which also owns Manchester City and a dozen other clubs around the world. The Aube team, thirteenth at the time of the departure of the French technician, fell in the standings to find itself today nineteenth and penultimate . The club is about to go down to Ligue 2.

Another recent event, Toulouse, winners of the France Cup on April 29, may not be allowed to play in the Europa League next season. The reason: its majority shareholder, the American fund RedBird, also owns AC Milan, which has a good chance of participating in a European Cup. However, UEFA prohibits two clubs with the same owner from competing together in a competition...

Some decisions call into question the objective pursued; Is the purchase of Jeffinho for 10 million by OL from Botafogo this winter a purely sporting choice, or a desire by the shareholder to value an asset of his group?

The movement has accelerated in recent months. In December 2022, Olympique Lyonnais passed under the American flag with the arrival of John Textor and Eagle Football, already at the head of Crystal Palace (England), Botafogo (Brazil) and Molenbeek (Belgium). In January, it was Black Night Football, which owns Bournemouth in the Premier League, which acquired 40% of FC Lorient. Of the 20 Ligue 1 clubs in 2023, 8 are members of a multi-club network. In Ligue 2, Bordeaux is also concerned with Gérard Lopez, as is Red Star in National (American fund 777 Partners).

Ligue 1 clubs that become mere subsidiaries of football multinationals? Once we have seen the development of timeshare, we must ask ourselves about its consequences. For clubs, the analysis varies depending on the position occupied in the galaxy. Today, Paris, Nice, Clermont, Lyon and Monaco are the locomotives of the groups of which they are members. Here, French teams will benefit from satellite clubs to, for example, lend their young players to get seasoned. It can also make it possible to make these entities bear certain transfer fees in order to circumvent the constraints of financial fair play, while investing in young talent. But even in this configuration, some decisions call into question as to the objective pursued; Is the purchase of Jeffinho for 10 million by OL from Botafogo this winter a purely sporting choice, or a desire by the shareholder to value an asset of his group?

The latest avatar of the financialization of this sport, timeshare, through the constitution of global conglomerates, thus reinforces the unequal dimension of European football.

When clubs are in the middle of the chain, the threat is easily identifiable: the loss of sovereignty, of control of their own destiny. Here, the objectives of the club are measured by the yardstick of the overall project of which they are a simple link. Serve the strategy of the galaxy, play the subordinate role assigned to it. What will happen to OGC Nice if owner Jim Radcliffe manages to buy Manchester United – for nearly 5 billion euros! –, as he has been trying to do for months? What about the future of RC Strasbourg if Chelsea shareholder Todd Boehly managed to buy the Alsatian club? There is a great risk of seeing mythical teams in our championship, anchored in their territory, with a strong identity, become simple subsidiaries of multinational footballers.

Liberalization to come? The latest avatar of the financialization of this sport, timeshare, through the constitution of global conglomerates, thus reinforces the unequal dimension of European football, which requires increasingly colossal economic means to be effective. It is therefore sporting uncertainty, the source of all emotions, that appears increasingly threatened. Worldwide, the number of teams in a multi-club galaxy (180) has increased 18-fold in 10 years. What to worry UEFA? Its president, Aleksander Ceferin, has announced that he is ready to review the rules of timeshare to allow, for example, to play in the same European competition. This will inevitably lead to an explosion of the phenomenon.

Warning, danger.

Source: lefigaro

All news articles on 2023-05-09

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